The invitation is forward…

A couple years ago, I went to an Argentinian Tango workshop with my good friend Zanna. The instructor was direct from Argentina and had a wonderful sense of humor. He must have – because he picked me to help demonstrate some basics. I was a very beginning beginner and don’t know what I was thinking. I managed to make it through the basic and then it happened— he lead a move I didn’t know. He stopped and said, “The invitation was forward.” The group chuckled. Take 2 – he lead the same move and obviously I didn’t get it because he stopped and said again, “The invitation was forward.” I felt frustrated and foolish and said that I was confused. He told me to stop thinking and to close my eyes and feel the lead. He lead the move again and this time, my leg did a fancy little flick behind the other one. I’m still not quite sure how that happened but I remember that feeling of letting go and listening with my heart and body without overthinking.

This little story is fitting for my inaugural blog post because I have thought and thought about blogging. At first I decided that I wasn’t one of *them* who live their lives on everyone else’s monitors. That wouldn’t fitwith my value of decreasing the amount of noise in our environments and reducing drama. I thought that an electronic monthly brochure would be the best solution to provide value to my readers, credibility for my business and marketing of my services. I asked around and was discouraged by how many people said that they either do not open enewsletters or autofile them to the trash. I looked at blogging again (and actually registered with WordPress) but decided that blogging didn’t align with my coaching business – after all, how could I authentically build relationships online? The idea that I would have to constantly update something and really be accountable since the date of my posts would be, well, posted scared off the perfectionist in me for quite a while. The choices of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, et.al. made my head spin a little.

So I did what any good coach would do and got some coaching around it. The outcome was a challenge to jump on Twitter and just post a Quote of the Day. I gingerly felt my way around Twitter for a while (you can see my attempts at twitter.com/divafish) until I felt a little more confident. I read a couple articles, talked with my networking group about their experiences and started to connect with a couple people that I met by tweeting. I revisited the idea of newsletter vs. blog and decided that I would give blogging a go.

I am sure that other people are wrestling with the same issue – trying to figure out what medium is best to reach your audience. It seems to me that it really is more of a cocktail – a little instant, a little french pressed and some long steeped for strength. Hmmm… sounds like some good topics for upcoming posts. What is most important is that I’ve called out what was stopping me (perfectionism and overwhelm) and gotten going.

The invitation is forward. Stop thinking so hard. Close your eyes and feel the lead.